Posts by Daniel Roberts

Here’s why Apple’s $1 billion investment in Didi Chuxing is so weird

When Apple ( AAPL ) announced recently that it had invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing, it was seen as a competitive blow to Uber, which is investing heavily in China. It was also a big score for Didi, which was formerly called Didi Kuaidi and was the result of a $6 billion mega-merger last year of Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. Didi is bigger in China than Uber is there.

With Apple’s money and other new investments, Didi has shot up the unicorn lists and is now one of the top five highest-valued private tech startups, at $20 billion (expected to rise to $25 billion if and when it closes a rumored $2 billion round), tied with Palantir, and behind only Airbnb, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, and… Uber.

But Apple’s investment was also notable for a reason having nothing to do with Didi or Uber: It represented extremely unusual business behavior by Apple. “Does Apple do this frequently? No, they do not,” says Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights, which tracks venture capital funding and tech unicorns. That’s an understatement—Apple almost never does this.

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How the Golden State Warriors became Silicon Valley's basketball team

It was only two years ago that Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, plunked down $2 billion to buy the Los Angeles Clippers. Since then he has brought his tech background to the squad forcefully: He announced his intention to techify the Staples Center; he wants the team to use Microsoft Surface tablets instead of Apple iPads. You might think the Clippers are, by default, the tech industry’s NBA team of choice.

But techies have chosen the Warriors.

Golden State won the NBA Finals last year and its star player, Stephen Curry, was the MVP of the league. This year the team is in the Finals again, and Curry is the MVP again. The team’s 73 regular-season wins set an all-time record. And as the team has risen to the top of the NBA, luminaries of Silicon Valley have eagerly hopped onto the bandwagon.

Of course, it isn’t just about the team’s success on the court, or about the stadium’s location in Oakland, a 30-minute drive from San Francisco. Everything about this Warriors team makes it candy for tech luminaries, even those who never cared much about basketball.

Warriors now 1-2 at home since owner Joe Lacob revealed to New York Times Magazine that he's smarter than everyone else.

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This year’s NBA Finals is the ultimate Nike-Under Armour showdown

When the Golden State Warriors take the court at home on Thursday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first game of the NBA Finals, the crown jewel of Under Armour’s athlete roster will stare down the most prominent and highest paid active Nike athlete.

And it’s even more fitting than that. James has been Nike-sponsored for 13 years, since he was just 18 years old in 2003, and has played 13 seasons. He’s a veteran of the league, a sports endorsement king, and left his hometown city to win a couple rings with the Miami Heat, then returned and is desperate to win a title in Cleveland. Curry, on the other hand, has only been with Under Armour for three years and only been in the league seven seasons. He won an NBA title in his sixth season; it took James until his tenth. Their brand sponsors mirror their stories, as Under Armour, even at 20 years old, is still seen as an upstart underdog to 52-year-old Nike.

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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.

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Where Silicon Valley stands in Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan vs Gawker

Was it right for billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel to financially back wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media?

The debate has only gotten hotter since reports came out last week that Thiel (pronounced “teal” like the color) was the secret wallet behind Hogan’s lawsuit. Since May 24, when Forbes first reported that fact, both Thiel and Gawker Media CEO Nick Denton have given public interviews on the matter. ( Thiel talked to the New York Times ; Denton went on CBS This Morning .) And while some might say the whole story is only interesting to journalists and media insiders—that is the basic argument of a blog post by Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters —notable figures in the tech industry have deemed it important enough to make their opinions public.

Here are all the Silicon Valley figures who have gone public with an opinion so far.

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Why FedEx CEO Fred Smith believes in this corporate safety app

You've heard the phrase, "See something, say something." Mobile safety platform LiveSafe, according to CEO Carolyn Parent, represents the additional "do something" part.

LiveSafe was founded in 2012 as an enterprise solution for corporations and colleges to solicit tips from employees and students who notice suspicious activity or an emergency. One of its cofounders, Kristina Anderson, was shot multiple times (but survived) in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech University.

No one can know if a platform like LiveSafe could have lessened the victim count of that particular shooting, but preventative action is the idea. Parent says that while many technologies exist for emergency notification—employees all receive a text message alerting them of something already happening—there wasn't an existing enterprise solution for prevention, something to go in the other direction: Employees alerting security about something bad. The platform "empowers employees... to help prevent incidents before they occur," Parent says.

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Corporate America is drooling over these 2 Mets pitchers

Noah Syndergaard is the National League player of the week right now. He’s one of the most daunting pitchers in baseball, and his stardom is exploding on and off the field. The same is true of his teammate, fellow Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom.

Syndergaard is younger and taller than deGrom (23, 6’7’’ vs. 27, 6’4’’) but both are excelling on the mound at a time when fellow pitcher Matt Harvey, the hero of the Mets’ pennant-winning season last year, is struggling. Syndergaard and deGrom have emerged this season as the team’s aces; they are fired up and feeling it. And corporate sponsors, in turn, are feeling them.

For Axe, these two guys make perfect sense. (Last year, it was Harvey that had an Axe Hair deal, but the deal has ended.) The company, long associated with teenage boys and deodorant spray, has lately focused on its hair care line, and has attempted something of a rebrand with a recent campaign, “Find your magic,” that encourages men and women to embrace their unique qualities—whether that’s cool hair or even a large nose—with confidence.

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Adidas is on an ironic hot streak in golf

Even if you don't closely follow golf, you've likely been unable to avoid hearing the name Jason Day lately.

For a couple of years now, the 28-year-old Australian has been mentioned in the same pack as Jordan Spieth (22), Rory McIlroy (27) and Rickie Fowler (27) as the four exciting young stars dominating the links. But so far this year, Day is shoulders ahead of the other three. He has won three PGA Tour events in 2016, more than any other golfer. Last year, he won his first Major, the PGA Championship. He is the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world.

That's great for Adidas (ADDYY), which sponsors Day. Adidas also sponsors Sergio Garcia, a well-liked 36-year-old Spaniard who has never won a Major. On Sunday, Garcia won an exciting playoff to capture the AT&T Byron Nelson tournament—another win for the Adidas Golf team. (Garcia beat Brooks Koepka, who is Nike-sponsored.) Adidas also sponsors Dustin Johnson, who has been in the mix of contenders at a number of tournaments this year.

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GoPro and golf look to each other for new life

Goldman Sachs: Here are 5 ways blockchain can change the world

Blockchain technology is finally "moving beyond the hype." Or so Goldman Sachs (GS) hopes.

That's the title of a new Goldman Sachs Research report on the potential use cases for blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that came around with the digital currency bitcoin. (Quick crash course: The bitcoin blockchain is open-source, public, permissionless, and anonymized; what banks and financial institutions now want to do is use alternate blockchains that, in most cases, would be closed, permissioned, and offer a more controlled environment.)

The Goldman report comes up with five "real-world scenarios" for blockchain where "the dollar benefits start to become apparent."

This may be the least sexy of these five scenarios, but blockchain tech could help with KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering) compliance efforts. By storing your account information on a closed blockchain, it could reduce the number of invalid or fraudulent transactions that get through.

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Why the biggest college sports apparel deal ever isn’t such a big deal

The “all-school deals” between sports apparel brands and top Division I universities are getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

Last summer, The University of Michigan landed an 11-year apparel deal (with the option to extend to 15) with Nike, reportedly worth $174 million to the school. At the time, it was the biggest ever deal of its kind. Then in October, The University of Texas blew Michigan out of the water with a 15-year Nike deal worth $250 million. Then in January came Ohio State University, which signed a deal with Nike that topped the Texas deal, as news outlets feverishly declared at the time. The 15-year contract was reportedly for $252 million — OSU owned the new “biggest college apparel deal ever.”

Now, once again, there’s a new king: University of California Los Angeles's 15-year deal with Under Armour, first reported by ESPN, will begin July 2017 and is believed to be worth $280 million.

It’s worth asking why these deals are inflating so quickly.

No single school is the "end all, be all" in this contract cold war.

He later deleted the post.

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Here’s why Amazon stock is up 42% in just 3 months

On February 9, Amazon stock ( AMZN ) hit its lowest point of 2016, at $482. This was a week after disappointing Q4 earnings sent shares tumbling.

But in the three months since that date, the stock has soared up 42%, an almost unprecedented gain.

It has some analysts saying that even in the $700s, the stock is undervalued. Bernstein, in a note this month, predicts the price could hit $1,000 before 2017. Almost across the board, analysts rate it a buy. Amazon is doing so well that it has Morgan Stanley, in a note last week, asking what might be “Amazon’s kryptonite,” since retailers are turning to social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest just to try to “offset the Amazon effect.” The stock hit an all-time high above $704 on May 10.

There has also been, according to a Credit Suisse note last month, “A confluence of increasing selection, Prime adoption, and Leap Day” that helped Amazon achieve a knockout spring. But that’s not the only confluence.

Barring a bad surprise, expect Amazon shares to keep climbing in the short-term.

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